Strictly - a Pas de Deux
I wrote this in 2010, and have performed it a couple of times. I dusted it off as a sort of obituary. Imagine a tango orchestra throbbing rhythmically in the background, if you like.
Strictly - a Pas de DeuxShe danced the Argentinian tango
It was nineteen eighty-two With Leopoldo Galtieri And a consid’rable naval crew She kicked him smack in the Malvinas Which made it hard for him to dance His frightened band of teenage conscripts Never really stood a chance She danced the colliery fandango It was nineteen eighty-four Her partner: Barnsley’s own King Arthur Who planned to even up the score She hit him hard right in his Orgreave She didn’t like the price of coal Bent coppers, riot shields and truncheons Now all our lads are on the dole She danced the polka in the White House With Ronald Reagan and his Nancy Whilst doing foxy trots with Gorbachev Which made her footwork rather fancy She said she’d wave the flag for Britain And get the country off its knees But nowdays all of British business Is owned by companies overseas She danced the Greater London Charleston It was nineteen eighty-six Red Ken was panicked at the disco Foul play and cheating, dirty tricks A twentieth-century gerrymander She whacked the councils that were leftly By now we called her Iron Lady And she manoeuvred very deftly |
(ii)
She danced an intricate Gay Gordons In eighty-seven, I recall With an outraged Peter Tatchell Whose protests hit a blue stone wall She smacked him squarely in the jawbone With her Section Twenty-Eight Which taught the children of the Nineties You’re only normal if you’re straight She danced the poll tax tarantella It was nineteen-ninety, spring More than one hundred thousand Britons Came out and did the protest thing Oh she was arrogant and haughty She said “this lady’s not for turning” Buck House had private reservations And Trafalgar Square was burning She trips an ageing danse macabre Here now in two thousand and ten Denis has shuffled off the dance floor And it is left for other men Her little love-child David Cameron And his unlikely partner Nicky Have taken up the Margaret rhythm And find the dance is rather tricky. |